1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (herein below, referred to as UMTS), and more particularly to an announcement broadcasting apparatus in the UMTS.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an announcement broadcasting apparatus is used when a fault occurs in a switching system during its operation, or a user requests a particular service for his or her special purpose. In particular, the apparatus is used to check the cause of a fault occurring within the switching system and send a message indicative of the checked cause to a user requesting a call to inform him or her of the current status of the switching system, when provision of a service becomes impossible due to the fault occurring in the switching system. The apparatus is also adapted to provide an announcement message to a user when the user inquires about his or her status from the switching system. Alternatively, a user may temporarily request a function such as an absence-indicating function, a call termination-rejecting function or the like from the switching system, so that when another user desires the connection of a call to the user from the switching system, the user may reject the call connection or may not receive the call. In this case, the apparatus provides an announcement message to another user. U.S. Pat. No. 6,298,043 to Roy Harold Mauger et al. entitled Communication system Architecture And A Connection Verification Mechanism Therefor briefly discusses an example of a call announcement server that stores and sends prerecorded system announcements that provide verbal instructions or verbal reassurances to users attempting to utilize a broadband (UMTS) interface.
Announcement message services in a UMTS are classified into a fixed type provided when a fault occurs in the system, and an edited type provided in response to an additional service request from the user. The announcement broadcasting apparatus includes a memory for storing a fixed message to be sent when a fault occurs within the system. When a fault occurs in the system, the apparatus receives a set of information about numbers of messages and the number of repetitive messages sent from a higher-order processor. At this time, when a user requests an additional service from the system in a state in which message information to be serviced by the apparatus has been stored in the memory, the apparatus combines variable information of the higher-order processor and the information stored in the apparatus by a request for the additional service from the higher-order processor so as to provide a certain announcement message service to the user.
Announcement messages are stored in the memory while being classified into a fixed type and an edited type. The memory is configured with a flash memory, so information stored in the memory always exists therein until it is erased. Various information, including information about the memory locations and sizes of the fixed and edited messages, message access information, and information about the format of the edited message are stored in the flash memory. Thus, even though a board is separated from the announcement broadcasting apparatus, a service provision is possible.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an announcement broadcasting apparatus in a Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) which is capable of applying message pattern information to messages to be sent, thereby enabling the messages to be sent and received without being classified into a fixed type and an edited type.
In accordance with the present invention, the above and other object can be accomplished by the provision of an announcement broadcasting apparatus in a UMTS, comprising message storage means for storing a plurality of external announcement messages therein; a message sending/receiving interface responsive to an announcement message sending request from a higher-order processor for reading parallel data from said message storage means, converting the read parallel data into serial data and outputting the converted serial data; unique message information storage means for storing information about locations and sizes of said announcement messages stored in said message storage means and outputting the stored information about the location and size of a corresponding one of said announcement messages in response to the announcement message sending request from said higher-order processor; and control means responsive to said announcement message sending request from said higher-order processor for detecting information about a location and size of each phoneme of said corresponding announcement message from said unique message information storage means according to pattern data of said corresponding announcement message, forming an array of the detected information and sending the formed information array to said higher-order processor via said message sending/receiving interface.